Handy Hubby Strikes Again #3

So, I have a bit of a shoe fetish.  I come by it honestly however, as people tell me my mother was a lover of shoes as well.  What better way to carry on her legacy, right?

However, I seem to have received my father's organizational skills rather than hers and my footwear issues have taken over our closet. 


Examining his work

My new shoe shelf (minus the back he put on it later)

Handy Hubby stepped up to the plate and saved the day.  (Of course cleaning and sorting them out helped as well.  I have 20 plus pairs to take to our church and Salvation Army.)  I have had some of them since early in college so it has been a slowly growing process.


But, now, thanks to my amazingly handy husband (and his itch to use his new nail guns that he got for Christmas), I have a wonderful, very tall, shelf for my shoes in my closet.

In place and full already.  I even shared a few spots with the great guy who made it. :)

Anybody Want to Help?

Blech!  Have  I ever mentioned that laundry is my nemesis?  This is a pile that needs folding.  The worst part of laundry.  Wanna know what is even worse?  Probably not, but I am going to tell you anyway.  I have already folded 2 loads and have one more in the dryer and one in the washer. 

So, if you are bored or tired of wrapping Christmas presents please come join me.  I promise I'll do the underwear (of which I made sure none was visible for the picture).  :)

(Update:  While the picture uploaded I got about 1/4 of this folded....but if you are still interested in joining me there is lots more to do.  Did I mention I made Chocolate Caramels the other day and I will share some?)

State of the Family #46

Ack!  It has been almost a month since my last SOF.  How in the world am I ever going to remember everything that we have been doing?  Well, I guess I won't be able to bore you with quite so  much information, then.  (I don't have pics added yet, but will soon!)

I guess Thanksgiving was in there somewhere.  We had a great time with family and my girls got to don their cute turkey shirts my friend, Lacey made them.  I, of course, couldn't leave Noisy Man out and make him a more "boyish" turkey shirt to wear (it has feathers on the back).  These pics were taken at a family Christmas we had the Saturday after Thanksgiving, if you're wondering what the stockings/presents are for.

Mommy did her annual Black Friday shopping and tackled about 75% of the Christmas shopping list all before 1 pm, and I didn't even start until 7 am.

The red hair saga continued for me as well and we finally got an acceptable color for the Christmas Musical.  It is actually still the same color as I haven't had time to drive home and get it 'fixed' yet.  It is growing on me, but something will have to be done as my roots are growing as well.

The week following Thanksgiving is, of course, taken over by the Christmas Musical and the entire thing is a blur, except for what I blogged about it.

The next week we make pretty low-key since Mommy is usually exhausted and daddy would have a coronary if I left the house again.  To make up for some mommy time lost during production week, I took the kids to Lost In Fun for a day full of mommy play time.  We love that place!

We started our Advent activities a little bit late, but the kids are totally loving our little activities that we do with each lesson.  We get to make a little ornament thing each day.  This is a struggle for mommy as it creates a lot of clutter and I don't do well with clutter.  "Why does it not go on your tree?" you ask.  Well, I am one of those mean, terrible mothers who has a matchy, pretty tree and doesn't do well with homemade things mixing in.  Don't worry though, another Christmas tree for our basement for all the homemade ornaments is on my day after Christmas shopping list!

We also had two programs for Noisy Man.  One at our church and one for school.  He did smashing in both of them and was so well-behaved I won't have any stories to tell other than how cute he looked.  Of course, when he was done with the one at church he barely had time to say hello to his grandparents before he had to rush off to the bathroom and I was totally bummed that I couldn't see him very well in his one at school.

Nothing else too exciting.  Miss Thumb Sucker is finally sleeping in her bed past 5:30 am.  Although she still wakes up about this time, she knows she can't crawl in bed with Mommy and Daddy anymore and gets tucked back in her bed.  She usually does well and sleeps again until 7.  Can anyone please tell me why she is waking up this early when she clearly wants to sleep longer?

Miss Firecracker is still loving preschool and brings home at least 5 colored and cut pages every day.  Her hands are eternally covered in magic markers.  This girl is too smart for her own good though.  Should I be scared or impressed that she sat down with us the other night to do Noisy Man's homework and could answer the missing numbers and find the missing numbers just as easily as he could?

My other big news is my new camera!!  Yeah!!  Finally, after waiting for two years to save for other necessities first I finally got to save for my camera and got it a week and a half ago.  It am totally loving it and still have lots to learn. 

Well, lots of presents to wrap, Christmas cards to address (just got them back from the printer) and more ornaments to make and Christmas stories to teach.  I'm not sure I'll make it back on before Christmas Day, so just in case.....

Keep the Christ in Christmas this year and enjoy the peace He brings each day as you surround yourself with loved ones.  Merry Christmas!

Proud Mama

Check this out.  Noisy Man brought it home from school yesterday.  My kindergartner did this all on his own.  No help from a teacher at all.  I am pretty impressed!

Here is a translation of the story, although most of it is fairly 'readable'.

She has a cat and that cat has a socks an that cat has mouse.  She has 2 cat.  That cat is fat.  That fat cat has a fat mouse.  (he hasn't quite learned how to spell mouse yet! :)  Below is the picture that goes with the story.

And Thats a Wrap! (#2)

Another year wrapped up from our Church's Christmas Musical.  This year "Because of Grace".  A show centered on being who God created you to be.  Feeling important because of the grace God has granted you through the blessed gift of Jesus, not because of what you do, how much money you have, the people you have as friends or anything else. 

The "theme song" this year sang, "Because of grace I can be who I am.  I can stand in Him, not on what I do.  Because of grace, my future is crystal clear.  Nothing for me to fear.  My God is always near.  Because of grace."  A great message that I need to hear almost on a daily basis, and one I definitely need to pass on to my kids.

It is such a time commitment to be involved in this production.  We start practices immediately following Labor Day.  Every Sunday for an hour and a half and those with speaking/acting roles also come in almost every Thursday evening for at least 2 hours as well.  But it is so worth it.  We have such a great time figuring out our roles, our characters, and just plain goofing off! 

The entire cast

Many thanks go out to: Kevin and Tami Boesiger, the writers and creators of this awesome script and musical production.  Kevin also helps direct the play as well as leads the orchestra while Tami also plays in the orchestra.  Paul Whaley our main director.  He drives us crazy with his detailed ideas and over-used quotes and non-filtered comments, but he has an amazing gift from God to bring it all together and we love him anyway! Kim Rinne, our awesome stage manager who gets us whatever we need and makes sure it is always in the right place.  Heck she even helps us get dressed!  Bruce our fabulous sound booth guy.  The Ulrick family for managing our lights.  All the other actors and chorus members for their time commitments. Their families for giving them up for all that time.  The orchestra members for some amazing music.  Courtney York, who helped watch the kids for our Sunday afternoon practices. Kathryn Katz for letting me borrow her shoes.  Amber Koch for her supply of Silpada jewelry. And everyone who came to see us.  I hope you took something out of the message we tried to share. 

Most of all, I thank my amazing husband for letting me do this.  All that time away meant that he was in charge of the kids, a lot.  It is never easy to take over for mom, when the kids are used to having her around all of the time, but he hung in there quite well as usual.  As well as my kids for giving me up to enjoy some me time and being good for their daddy while I was gone.

Gracie, Max, Ned and Val (me)

Even more, I thank God for making this happen.  For bringing it all together and for the talents and love of all these people.  He has generously blessed them with giving hearts and selfless spirits.  I hope what we did was a small reflection of His grace and glory.

It is always a bittersweet ending.  Happy to have the calendar a little bit more open and more family time.  But so sad to not see many of my great friends but once a week with quick "Hello's" at church, and to have to wait until the next year for more great memories and inside jokes. 

You can read more about what I really learned from this year's musical here as well.